


If you give an alien a syllabus...

by SapphicScholar



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Community College AU, F/F, Fluff, nerdy bookclub
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:55:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25128115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphicScholar/pseuds/SapphicScholar
Summary: “Alex blinked after her retreating form, wondering how she’d gone from trying to get this woman the hell out of her classroom to inviting her to read advanced environmental science literature together over coffee.”Or Astra is interested in learning more about human culture and *very* interested in what Alex is teaching her Intro to Environmental Science students at National City Community College
Relationships: Astra/Alex Danvers
Comments: 58
Kudos: 201





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I was rewatching season 1 and got nostalgic, so I figured I’d try a General Danvers AU for the first time. Also, this is 100% a love letter to community colleges and the wonderful people who staff and attend them, and dedicated in particular to C, my favorite CC professor whose love for their intro to composition students is rivaled only by their love for Laura Benanti

Alex took a sip of what was, already, lukewarm coffee and tried not to grimace. There should have been enough time to get a proper coffee at the little shop down the block, but of course the printer would jam right when she needed it to work, and of course it would turn out that they were also ridiculously low on toner, so half the handouts were now printed in a navy that got progressively lighter and lighter as the stack went on. All of which left her with shitty vending machine coffee. Which was still better than no coffee for a night class that would stretch until 9.

With a sigh, she took another sip and watched her students trickle in, trying to remember each one’s name as they found their seats and pulled out notebooks and pens and travel mugs full of what was, given some of their commute times, probably lukewarm coffee of their own.

There was Eve. Marcus. José. Maria. All four had been early for both classes the first week, too, and Alex wasn’t surprised when they shuffled towards the front of the room again.

Katarina was next, accompanied by someone Alex didn’t recognize. Probably a late addition. She made a note to print out a few extra copies of the syllabus. She’d learned her very first semester teaching at National City Community College that just because the overworked department administrator hadn’t emailed her about new additions didn’t mean she wouldn’t get them. Sometimes joining as late as week 4.

Dani and Jacinda were the next through the doorway, fingers intertwined and a bag of takeout from the restaurant where Dani had gotten a job last semester. Alex waved and nodded at them. They’d been in her biology class the year before and had finally cobbled enough part-time jobs together to move into a small apartment on the outskirts of the city.

Ari slipped in a few moments later, settling into a seat in the back row. Another minute brought with it a small influx of students. Alex glanced at the clock. Probably the crowd from the 34 bus.

Brittany took her seat by the door, smiling grimly up at Alex. Apparently her morning sickness tended to come at night, and Alex had been quick to assure her that she could leave whenever and however often she needed to. She’d been beyond grateful, mentioning that the professor for her computer science class hadn’t been nearly so understanding, and Alex had swung by his office the next day with a few harsh words and reminders about how students should be treated.

As distracted as Alex was by memories of that conversation, she couldn’t miss the woman striding into her classroom and surveying the room with a level of attention and formality that was more than a little unusual for the setting. Now maybe that kind of focus would be appropriate at the vending machines, but for choosing a seat? Not so much. Finally, the woman settled herself in the back corner of the room, her posture perfectly straight as she rolled her shoulders back. Alex’s gaze was drawn to the streak of white that ran through her hair and the total lack of any notebooks or pens or even a phone to take notes on.

She shook herself out of it and called the class to session as the last few students to arrive took their seats.

“Good evening, and welcome back to Environmental Science. I see a few new faces this week, so if you’ve only just enrolled, make sure to see me after class. I’ll get you set up with a syllabus and handouts you missed from last week.” Her comment was met with a few nods. “For those of you who don’t already know me, I’m Dr. Alex Danvers. I also teach Intro to Bio and a rotating selection of upper-level science electives. Last week, I gave a brief introduction to the field of environmental science, and we worked through some readings on environmental systems. Today we’re going to be talking about biodiversity and population ecology.”

Alex turned around and wrote both phrases on the board, pleased to find that there was still plenty of chalk. There was nothing worse than the last few weeks of the semester when all she could find, if she got lucky, were tiny little nubs that were barely usable.

“Now, based on the two readings we did for today, who can give me a definition of biodiversity?”

A beat, then Maria’s hand shot up. Alex bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at how very accurate her first week’s predictions had been. “Yes, Maria?”

And then they were off, students slowly beginning to participate more and more as they delved into the readings and started getting into why these topics mattered and how they might consider questions of population density and makeup and resource availability as they started to brainstorm topics for their midterm papers on climate change and its disparate effects on various populations.

Once they neared the end of the first hour, Alex sent them all out for a quick break. “When we get back, you’ll be working in small groups, so start clustering yourselves into groups of, let’s say three students each, okay?”

Alex watched as they shuffled out of the room, many of them jogging for the vending machines to try to cobble together enough snacks to pass for dinner. Two of the new students came up to her desk and introduced themselves, and Alex took down both of their email addresses to send them electronic copies of everything they’d missed, along with a promise to bring extra hard copies to class that Thursday.

As students began to trickle back in, Alex called out a reminder to get into groups and began distributing worksheets to each group. The ones who already knew each other clumped together, but slowly the newcomers found their way into pairs, then groups of three. Finally, the woman with the white streak in her hair was the only one left, seated apart from everyone else.

“As a reminder, we’re working in small groups. If you need to be in a group of four to make sure everyone’s included, that’s fine.”

The woman made no moves to join a group. Alex sighed. Sometimes that happened with the older students during the first few weeks as they struggled to find their place in the room.

But then Dani was turning around to face her and gesturing at a free chair by their group. As students began to read the directions and start on the activity, the chatter rose in volume, and Alex quickly eased the door closed to keep from disturbing the lit class that met across the hall.

“Just raise your hands if you have any questions about the activity,” Alex called out.

She quickly fielded a few logistical questions—Will this be graded? Do we need to turn anything in? Can we use phones to check numbers?—and then settled in at her desk.

After a few minutes, the woman’s hand rose—tentative at first, then more certain.

Weaving through the rows of tables, Alex made her way over. “What’s up?”

The woman’s brow furrowed for a moment before smoothing out. “Your…”—she gestured at the worksheet—“paper assumes that resource consumption will be standard across populations. That is not true.”

“Well, it’s not that we actually think everyone is going to use the exact same resources, but here we’re trying to get a general sense, so we estimate. We take community averages and use them instead of making you calculate that yourself.” She smiled. “Save you some math, hmm?”

“These are human averages.”

“Oh.”

“Is your science so sloppy that it would disregard the presence of non-human life all around you?”

Alex saw Dani’s jaw drop at the tone. “Let’s remember, this is an intro-level class. People working in the field? Absolutely, we’re gonna take into account animal life and the possibility of other species that use different resources or emit gases other than carbon dioxide, but—”

“But you would let your impressionable students believe themselves the only beings to matter?”

Alex ground her teeth together and took a deep inhale through her nose. “We scaffold skills and knowledge in this class. We start with things that we know with certainty—the baseline about the human population that makes up the majority of a city’s residents, say, and learn to do certain kinds of calculations and analyses here. Then we start introducing variables like the ones you’re discussing.”

The woman looked ready to protest, but Alex held up a hand. “It seems like maybe you’ve already thought a lot about these questions, so why don’t we talk after class. I have some more advanced readings that I’d be happy to share with you, and we can talk about integrating some of these ideas into your midterm paper. Does that sound okay to you?”

“I will speak to you then, Doctor.”

“I—yeah, okay.”

Alex had thought—or hoped—that would be the last from the woman she’d started thinking of as Mystery Student. Maybe also Problem Student, if she were being honest. Not that she would want to quash anyone’s intellectual curiosity, but it was always hard trying to manage vastly different knowledge bases in the classroom, especially if those further ahead weren’t willing to let the others learn at a pace that worked for them.

Only, of course it wasn’t the end. After they’d gone through the worksheet and begun thinking about how some of these analyses might help policymakers think about potential interventions to make around climate change, the woman had interjected again with dire pronouncements about the state of the planet.

“These changes are superficial at best. Your planet will be decimated without urgent intervention so far beyond the scope of these meager policies, and yet you still squabble over this minutia.” As she continued on to describe the kind of ruin that would arrive soon enough, Alex watched as several students’ faces blanched.

“Right, we will certainly discuss timelines and the different impacts of different sorts of changes. We’ll spend a unit running simulations—”

“Your simulations vastly underestimate the way such changes can accelerate, the compounding effects of these environmental disasters, the—”

“That sounds like a wonderful topic to investigate for your midterm or your final project. And again, discussing something in class is not an endorsement of it. We’re simply investigating what proposed changes are actually on the table right now, asking what various countries are doing to try to offset their carbon footprints, thinking about how certain private companies are or are not shifting their standards.” Marcus’s hand inched up, and Alex beamed at him. “Yes, Marcus, go ahead!”

\---

By the time class was over, Alex was exhausted, and several students looked traumatized by the grim depictions of the fire-and-brimstone-like ends that Mystery Student had described in vivid detail. And speaking of…

“Doctor, you asked to speak with me after class.”

“Yes, here, have a seat.” Alex stood and dragged one of the chairs over to the side of her desk. “Before we start, I’m sorry, but I don’t have an updated class roster. Can you tell me your name?”

“Astra.”

“Okay, Astra, it’s nice to meet you.”

She looked confused, but eventually nodded.

“Right, so I wanted to check in with you, make sure this class was the right fit. I know it meets the science requirement, but it seems like you already have a very solid grasp on these concepts. Might an upper-level elective be a better fit for you?”

“An elective…?”

“Oh! Are you first-gen?”

“I do not understand.”

“Sorry, first generation, meaning you’re the first one in your family to go to college.”

“My family was incredibly well-educated, Doctor.”

Alex held up her hands. “It’s not an insult, Astra. I just mean, not everyone’s familiar with the education system—the terminology we use, the structure of different classes, things like that. I want to make sure I’m meeting you where you’re at, that’s all.”

“I see. I am the first to attend your college.”

“Right, okay, so you’re a first-year student, then?”

“I suppose that would be correct.”

“Now did the Registrar place you in this class, or the Dean? Or did you choose it?”

“I saw it on your Internet website.”

“Great. Now, how did you feel about the content? It seemed to me like a lot of it was already familiar to you.” Astra nodded. “You can switch your enrollment to a different class if you think this might be too basic for you. I can vouch for you if you need some help getting into an upper-level class.”

“How would I enroll?”

“The same way you did for this one.”

Astra gave her a blank look.

“Are you…you are a student, right?”

“Yes, I would like to learn how you think.”

“I mean…did you submit paperwork and formally sign up for this class?”

“No, I found it and showed up at the time and location indicated on your Internet website.”

“Oh. Uh, technically, these classes are only open to students who have paid and are actively enrolled at NCCC.”

“I would pay money? For this?”

Alex scowled. “It is an intro-level class.” Forcing herself to take a deep breath, she tried again. “Tuition is not a requirement in every country. Or at least, not tuition like this. Or…” Alex bit her lip, thinking about the woman’s mannerisms and Kara’s shock over their education system when she had first arrived. “Or on every planet.”

Astra’s eyebrows shot up. “I must leave now.” She was up and out of the chair in a flurry of movement—the least graceful Alex had seen her look.

“No! Wait!”

Astra slowly turned back around.

Alex sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Look, you seem really passionate about this topic. But you also…might not be a good fit here.”

“Then I shall leave.”

“I just mean in this class. We’ve got a lot of students who have never heard of environmental science, or only heard about it in passing in high school earth science classrooms, you know? And that foundational work takes time and readings and activities that seem like they’ll only frustrate you.”

“They are very frustrating.”

Alex couldn’t help the grin at the little crinkle that had appeared between the woman’s eyebrows, so much like Kara’s tell. “Even though this class is the wrong fit, I’m not gonna sit here and turn away someone who wants to learn and is as enthusiastic about the material as you are.”

“Okay…”

“I have some articles and books that I think you’d like. I’m trying to do more work on my own research this semester, but maybe you could swing by my office once a week for an hour or two, and we could talk about them.”

“Would I pay you?”

“Nah, I mean a lot of this will be very recent stuff that I’ve been meaning to read anyway. It can be like…book club. Really nerdy book club.”

“I have heard of book clubs. I should bring wine?”

Alex let out a bark of laughter. “Uh, maybe not that kind of book club. Why don’t we stick with coffee to start out with?”

“Coffee.” Astra nodded.

From there, it was just a matter of setting up logistics, and then Astra was gone.

Alex blinked after her retreating form, wondering how she’d gone from trying to get this woman the hell out of her class to inviting her to study advanced environmental science together over coffee.

\---

“So I think I have an alien in my class,” Alex said as she settled down beside Kara and stole a slice of pizza from her plate.

“Oh?”

“Mhmm, or well, not really in my class? She just showed up. Isn’t a student at NCCC at all, actually.”

Kara snickered. “Did she see the chili pepper on your Rate My Professor account and decide to shoot her shot?”

“That was one time! I told you not to bring it up again,” Alex grumbled.

“One hilarious time.” Alex rolled her eyes. “Anyway, so why do you think she’s an alien?”

“Just…her mannerisms? I don’t know, super formal diction and seems really annoyed by some Earth customs. Also she kept saying, ‘your planet,’ like it wasn’t hers.”

“Ah, yeah, that’ll do it.”

“She reminds me a little of you.”

“You mean she’s delightful and the best student you’ve ever had?”

“No, she’s just as bratty as you were when you first arrived.” Alex barely had time to stick her tongue out before a pillow was being launched at her face. “You suck,” Alex grumbled, plucking little fluffies out of her mouth as she set the pillow back down on the couch.

“So whatcha gonna do with your alien not-student?” Kara asked around a large mouthful of pizza.

“First I was trying to get her out of my class, but then I realized she was maybe just confused and didn’t know how beginner it would be, but she’s really passionate about this, and how am I supposed to turn away someone like that? And, I don’t know. Somehow I ended up inviting her to read some advanced journal articles with me and talk about them?”

“So she’s pretty?”

“Kara!”

“What?”

“That’s so inappropriate.”

“She’s not your student. Also, not a student literally at all.”

“I mean, yeah, I guess. I don’t know. She’s kind of an asshole, though.”

“So she’s your type.”

“Shut up. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Alright, well then let me tell you about the cute new Art Director Ms. Grant just poached from _The_ _Daily Planet_ …”

\---

Alex glanced up from her computer at the sound of a knock on her office door. “Come in!”

“Doctor,” Astra greeted her, setting two cups of coffee down on the desk. “I brought coffee, as requested.”

“Thank you,” Alex laughed, pushing her own mug of mediocre coffee off to the side. “And Alex is fine. Even my students don’t call me Dr. Danvers, and we’re just…friends. Sort of. Book club friends.”

A beat of silence.

“I read the articles,” Astra said. “There are still inaccuracies, but they were much better than the ones you assigned to your students.”

“They’re new to this, Astra,” Alex sighed. “These articles would have taken them ages to get through, and only people immersed in the field would understand half of the concepts.”

“But they are interesting.”

“Look, why don’t you sit down and tell me what you liked about them?”

And thus began a deep dive into climate science. Over the course of their meeting, Alex learned that Astra hated the phrase, “the Anthropocene,” loved learning about the history of radical environmental activism, and most certainly came from a planet with science and mathematical modeling capabilities far beyond Earth’s own. She also learned that Astra knew plenty about astrobiology after trying to break her own research down to easily comprehensible elements and having her efforts waved away before she was hit with dozens of nuanced questions and counterarguments that had her scrambling for a pencil.

Before they knew it, two full hours had passed. “I need to go make some copies before my Bio class meets, but this was…fun.”

“It was enjoyable, Alex.”

“Well, if you want to do it again, I think I have some readings you’d really enjoy. A little lighter on the hard science, but there are some people from other disciplines who do really interesting work on the impacts of environmental disasters—who they impact, how those impacts exacerbate existing inequalities, how so much of the ecojustice movement misses that fact, stuff like that.”

“I would like that.”

With a nod, Alex spun around, plucking books from her shelves and papers from piles on her desk. When she turned back to Astra, the woman was smiling. “What?”

“You remind me a bit of a woman I once knew.”

“Oh?”

“She worked with my brother-in-law. Organized chaos,” she laughed, and Alex felt her heart thud heavily at the sound. And _oh_ , the woman had been striking, certainly, but with that smile and the laugh, Alex realized how beautiful she was as well.

“So, uh, brother-in-law,” her voice cracked slightly over the word, and she cleared her throat. “Is your family in National City, too? Spouse? Friends?”

“I…I suppose my husband is here.” Astra rubbed at her wrist as her gaze grew distant.

“That’s…nice. I didn’t realize you were married.” Her gaze flicked to Astra’s bare ring finger for a moment.

“It is complicated.”

“Ah.” Alex nodded. She’d had a number of students end up in her class in the midst of divorce proceedings or soon after they’d ended marriages and relationships. Lots of slightly older women, sometimes mothers whose children were finally old enough to stay home alone for a few hours at night. Still, she didn’t want to make assumptions.

Before the silence between them could grow awkward, Alex shuffled the papers in her hands. “Uh, if you have a few minutes, I’ll make copies for you.”

Astra nodded and followed Alex down the hallways to the ancient copy machine that was still chugging along, even it had developed a personality with age.

“Your university is…different than your media led me to believe it would be.”

“That so?”

“There is quite a bit of concrete and very little ivy.”

The sound of Alex’s laugh echoed in the little room. “Yeah, maybe try, like, Yale or something for that. We barely get enough funding to keep a 12-year-old printer running, let alone grow some extra plants we’d have to pay someone to look after.”

“But your students pay to attend, do they not?”

“Well, yeah. But not nearly so much as they do at other schools. And we don’t have some giant endowment to bankroll extra stuff.”

“I see. There are tiers.”

“It’s a good school,” Alex snapped. “The students are smart and talented and plenty motivated. Just because we don’t have fancy brick buildings and mahogany desks and shit doesn’t mean—”

“I did not mean to offend you.”

Alex huffed out a breath.

“I am simply trying to understand why there are such differences. You are clearly a talented researcher. I have read your published papers.”

“You…you have?”

“That is how I found your course.”

“Oh.” Alex felt her face flush with warmth and rubbed a hand along the back of her neck. “That’s, um, very flattering.”

As Alex copied the rest of the readings, she walked Astra through the roughest possible sketch of higher education in America, all too aware of the ways her descriptions weren’t enough. But Astra seemed to follow well enough, and Alex had no doubt that she would come back the following week with questions after doing reading of her own.

“Alright, so I think you’ll like these, and they talk about the more recent history of the environmental justice movement that you seemed to be interested in, so hopefully you’ll enjoy that part.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, of course. See you next week. I’m looking forward to it.” And that was just it, Alex thought. She really was.

\---

For the next several weeks, Alex and Astra met for a few hours on Wednesday afternoons, talking through papers that had branched out from environmental science to astrobiology and, for one memorably frustrating meeting, a stack of philosophy that Astra had proposed.

Astra rarely let information slip by without notice, but, slowly, she began to disperse information about herself like breadcrumbs. Something here, something there. Deliberate. Always so deliberate. Assessing Alex’s reaction to every new detail revealed. One week, it was that she had been a general. In response, Alex made a comment about her perfect posture and right angles that seemed to please Astra. The next week brought a few details about her family: an unnamed twin sister whose mention seemed to elicit many reactions too dense for Alex to parse through and a niece who made Astra smile—broad but wistful. There were little mentions that pointed at origins far beyond Earth, and Alex took them in stride. Every so often Alex would slip in details about former students from other planets, what they had brought to the readings, the ways their perspectives had proved invaluable.

It wasn’t until week seven, when they’d finally shifted to meeting in a coffee shop with food and fresh drinks that wouldn’t be forgotten, left to turn icy cold over the course of their meetings, that Alex mentioned an adopted alien sister. As Astra stood to return their mugs once they had finished their coffee, she turned slightly on her heel, looking back at Alex, and said, “I watched my home planet burn. Ecological catastrophe. No part of it remains. Almost none escaped.”

Astra didn’t return to the table after her revelation, but the following week, she came back again. “If you’d ever like to talk about it, you know where to find me,” Alex had said, and that had been the end of that.

But it seemed the last stumbling block for them, and slowly but surely, the flow of information became more frequent, steady even.

“How are you?” turned into, “What’d you do this week?”

“Fine,” turned into stories. Alex talked about a bad phone call with her mother, about always getting defensive, feeling like there was no world in which her mother with her world-famous research lab approved of Alex’s life at NCCC, no matter how happy it made her. Astra talked about fighting with her husband and some of the community they had created a life with on this planet, about feeling like she was changing into someone new but that those changes were ripping her further and further away from the woman she’d once fought to be.

At times, they met later in the day, met for drinks instead of coffee, and drinks would, at times, turn into heated debates about ethics and humanity, about history and the future. And every week, Alex found herself more and more drawn to this woman who could speak so passionately about a culture and a world that she claimed to find nothing less than infuriating.

Alex filled Kara in with little stories here and there—never anything identifiable, not wanting to betray Astra’s confidence, but desperately needing someone to gush to as she felt herself falling for the woman. Not that she would admit it. It took her a whole monologue about Astra’s eyes—“I just…ugh, do you ever think you could get lost in someone’s eyes for years? And be happy about it”—for Alex to even admit that she might, just maybe, be attracted to the woman beyond an aesthetic appreciation.

Still, Alex assumed she could keep it professional. Every week she told herself it was a friend crush, nothing more. And then every Wednesday she showed up and felt her whole body light up beside Astra and listened to the universe laugh at her pathetic attempts at denying that it meant anything.

\---

One week, Astra arrived looking agitated and out of sorts. “Your planet is dying,” she snapped once she found Alex waiting for her outside. “You are doing nothing about it!”

“I’m not doing nothing!”

“Your people,” Astra spat, stepping into Alex’s space.

Alex’s brain seemed to short circuit at the close proximity. “I—they’re not my people. I mean, they are, but I don’t control their choices.”

“You must make them listen.”

“Or what?” Alex laughed. “You’re gonna force them to?”

“And what if I must? What if those are my options?”

“Woah, okay, what happened?”

Alex listened as Astra ranted about a bill that had been voted down, negotiations bungled by partisan politics, a planet in peril left hanging in the balance. But she also listened to what went unsaid, what made itself heard only in the gaps and silences.

“You tried to help your home planet, didn’t you?”

“Don’t speak of things you do not understand, Doctor.”

“I’m not—” Alex cut herself off and took a deep breath. “Then tell me. Help me understand.”

“You know that my planet died.”

“I do. But I don’t know how you escaped, not really.” She had her suspicions, but she wasn’t quite ready to voice them.

“I was imprisoned off world at the time of K—of…its destruction.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Alex shrugged. “I’ve spent a few nights in jail. Not the same, but I’m not going to judge you for who you were.”

“Why not?”

“Why should I?”

“My sister did!”

“The judge…oh. Oh, Astra.”

Astra swallowed heavily. “It matters little. But your planet must be different. They must act, or… They simply must act.”

“Or what?”

“Or your planet will die.”

“But that’s not the only thing that might happen, is it? You’ve talked about back home…” There had been mentions of a plan, extreme measures that would have saved the planet but at a cost deemed too high by the Council. “Astra, what are you planning?”

She was gone before Alex could register anything more than a slight breeze.

\---

The next time Alex saw Astra was outside her apartment building over a week later. Astra was waiting for her, pacing back and forth on the sidewalk outside the old brick building with its flickering lights that barely illuminated the doorway and its half-assed gardens whose only flourishing plants were weeds.

“Astra.”

“I…apologize, Alex.”

“For what? Running out on me? Standing me up yesterday? Suggesting you were gonna do something drastic to the government that might get you imprisoned or killed?”

She scoffed. “They cannot kill me.”

“Astra,” Alex sighed, rubbing at her face. “Look, I… Come upstairs?”

“What?”

“This isn’t a conversation I want to have outside.”

With a small nod of assent, Astra followed Alex inside and upstairs, graciously not saying anything about the faint smell of stale beer and rotting food emanating from apartment 1B.

When they finally made it up to Alex’s apartment, Astra glanced around, unable to keep the small smile from her lips. “Organized chaos,” she muttered under her breath.

“End of the semester,” Alex explained with a shrug. She gestured at the largest stack of papers, some of which were strewn across the kitchen table with markings all across them. “Final project rough drafts from the Environmental Science class you almost took.”

“May I see?”

Alex shrugged. “I doubt I could stop you. But no grading them or marking them up.”

Astra held her hands up in a halfhearted gesture of surrender as she sank down to the seat positioned right in the middle of the chaos.

After a few minutes, Astra said, “They have learned a great deal since I first met them.”

“Yeah. That’s what happens in classes. Or, what should happen. When they go well.”

“They think in too modest terms. Less so this one, though. I like this one.”

“Oh, Dani? Yeah, I can see you two getting along. Think she took your warnings to heart.”

“Smart girl,” Astra murmured.

“Astra, what’s going on?”

“I am reading.”

“You know what I mean,” Alex sighed. She grabbed a beer from the fridge, then a second that she offered to Astra, who accepted it with a shrug of her shoulders. She easily pulled the top off while Alex was rustling though her drawers to get a bottle opener. “So…strength beyond a human’s, then.”

“Well beyond.” Astra grinned, and in a moment, Alex had been lifted into the air, cradled in just one of Astra’s arms as if she weighed nothing.

Alex’s heart thundered in her chest, and her whole body flushed with warmth.

“Your heart—it is racing. You do not need to fear me. I would not drop you, Alex.”

“I, uh, I know.” Astra’s fingers skimmed the strip of bare skin where Alex’s shirt had ridden up, and Alex couldn’t stop the hitch in her breathing or the full-body shudder that ran through her.

“Oh.” Astra’s voice was a whisper.

“I’m sorry. I—I know you’re married, and probably not even interested in women or humans at that, especially humans with primitive science technolo—”

The rest of Alex’s words were cut off as Astra pressed her lips to Alex’s—bruisingly hard at first, but quickly gentling as Alex kissed her back. Astra’s other arm looped around her waist, pulling Alex closer to her as Alex’s tongue flicked across Astra’s lower lip, her fingers tangling in her hair.

Panting and only half convinced that she shouldn’t simply guide Astra to the sofa, Alex forced herself to pull back, pressing her forehead to Astra’s. “Not that I really want to stop doing that, but there are probably”—Alex’s breath caught in her throat as Astra’s hands slid to her waist as she lowered Alex back to the ground—“um, probably, uh, things we should talk about first.”

“Perhaps that would be wise.”

“Maybe in the living room?” Alex hesitated for a moment before taking Astra’s hand and guiding her to the sofa. “Like…well, are you married? Also, are you actively planning to engage in some casual weekend ecoterrorism? Because I gotta be honest, for first dates, generally I prefer a drinks at a bar. Maybe dinner.”

“I am worried about your planet, Alex.”

“And I love that you care this much, but conjugal visits aren’t really my thing.”

“I no longer believe… You must understand, there are ways we could solve this crisis. Quickly. Perhaps in a year, maybe two. But I have come to understand that it may not be our place…not with the methods we would be forced to use.”

“Well, that’s…good.”

“You misunderstand. I am not the only one who believes in the cause. But not all of us have come to doubt the ethics of our means.”

“Oh.”

“They have found a new leader.” She took a deep breath. “My husband.”

“I see.”

“We have not… On my planet, marriages were not often based on love. Compatibility, yes, but not love. If you were lucky, you might grow to love one another. My sister…she did.”

“And you?”

“We were partners. He fought by my side and stood with me against the Council’s failures to act.” A pause. “But we have not loved each other for a very long time.” She ducked her head, her fingers curling into fists, then unclenching. “There have been others. For him.”

“And you?”

“My work has been enough.”

“And now?”

“I never thought I would worry about you humans. About what it would mean to save your planet at the expense of your agency.” Alex swallowed heavily and tried not to shudder at the implications. “But then I began reading. I attended your class. I observed protests and meetings.” She let out a loud huff. “Many of you remain utterly infuriating.”

Alex nodded slightly. “Yeah, I’m not a huge fan of most people either.”

Astra’s lips quirked into a smile. “That is, perhaps, why I like you most of all.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

And Alex knew there were more questions she should ask, but Astra was right there and smiling with those cheekbones and…and really, common sense didn’t stand a chance.

This time she was the one to lean forward, cupping Astra’s jaw with her hand as she drew her into a kiss—soft, at first, then deepening until Alex found herself in Astra’s lap.

“Okay, wait,” Alex interjected, the words breathier than she’d have liked them to be. “The whole ecoterrorism thing?”

Astra trailed her fingertips along Alex’s jaw, tracking the slow, steady movement with her gaze. “I am still committed to change.”

“Okay.”

“But perhaps I could be convinced that there are less…drastic measures to be taken.”

“Well, I’m pretty good at winning arguments, so…”

“I have no doubt, Alex.”


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to spend so many more chapters worldbuilding in this universe (and maybe one day I'll return), but these days I'm trying to figure out how to teach my own students simultaneously online and in person, so for now, please enjoy this short wrap up!

Jason shuffled into the room, glancing up at the clock and cursing under his breath as he realized that he was late. Again.

He silently slid into the back corner seat, then peeked down to the front of the room, only to find Professor Danvers engrossed in conversation with some woman he’d never seen before. Glancing around him, he tapped Citlali on the shoulder.

“What?”

“Did we start yet?” he whispered.

“No. Remember, we’ve got that lady from the think tank here today.”

“Oh shit, right.” He paused, looking again towards the front of the room. He’d expected someone older, a lot stuffier looking. “Think that’s her?”

But then Professor Danvers was clearing her throat, and Citlali shushed him as she sat up straighter in her seat. Jason rolled his eyes and slumped back down into his chair. Professor Danvers was kinda cool once you got past the scary part, and he knew she’d hosted some networking event at the LGBTQ center for queer STEM students that Citlali had gone to (he was almost 99% certain she didn’t want to go into STEM and just wanted to drool over Danvers in a suit and tie, but whatever). But still, it was just class, and a guest speaker day at that. Those were the best days to get a little shut eye in before he had to go to his overnight shift.

He zoned out as she introduced Dr. Astra something, catching bits here and there about groundbreaking research and founding her own think tank, and some big ballot initiative she’d advocated for and helped get passed in California.

He applauded politely as she stepped to the front of the room, then let gravity take over again as he slid lower in his seat, cheek finding its spot against the heel of his palm.

Astra smiled at them.

“Your planet is dying.”

He blinked. “ _Your_ planet?” He knew that phrase. Had heard his mom use it plenty when she thought he’d assimilated too much to the “worst Earth customs.” Mainly it was about slamming his door and liking heavy metal. He was pretty sure 19-year-olds everywhere did that, though.

“It is easy to lose sight of what is at stake when we talk about record high temperatures, rising sea levels, melting ice caps.”

She clicked through a series of images in her presentation—news headlines and tweets and photos from some of the wildfires that had blazed through that summer.

“I watched my home planet die a fiery death.”

His jaw dropped, and he heard gasps and murmurs break out around the room. It wasn’t like aliens had to keep their identities hidden so much since Marsdin’s Amnesty Act, but he knew as well as anyone that people could be assholes, and for someone who blended as well as she did…

When he refocused on the board, he saw large images projected. They looked more like paintings than photos.

“The last moments, captured by my very talented niece.”

He heard a quiet sniffle and saw Professor Danvers swiping roughly beneath her eyes. Because apparently today was going to be full of shocking twists, and why wouldn’t his tough-as-nails professor be crying over some paintings about a planet she’d never been to?

Jason spent the rest of the talk on the edge of his seat, taking in every word Astra said. He scribbled down the email address on the last slide when she mentioned looking for a summer intern—“And despite the title, know that you will be paid. I don’t believe in your country’s exploitative labor practices.”

Professor Danvers cleared her throat.

“I meant to say, I believe in making positions accessible to all.” She rolled her eyes at Professor Danvers as she said it, though, and a few brave students tittered.

The Q&A after her talk was lively, and they went right up until the end of the class without any of the normal awkward pauses that came with guest speakers who didn’t get how to talk to students like they were real people.

“Oh my god, she was so awesome,” Citlali hissed as they were packing up.

“Got a new crush?” he teased.

“Please, you were ready to fling yourself to the front of the room when she asked if anyone might be interested in that job.”

“Whatever,” he muttered, scuffing his foot on the floor. “It’s not like I’m gonna get it or anything.”

“You should introduce yourself.”

He raised his eyebrows as he shoved his notebook into his backpack. “I don’t wanna annoy her.”

“You won’t. Look, Abby’s already down there sucking up. Get your name in her head.”

“You think so?”

“Come on, I’ll wait with you and everything. I want to ask Dr. Danvers about my final paper anyway.”

So they slunk down to the front of the room, hovering to the edges as a handful of students talked to Astra. As they slowly started to filter away, Citlali shoved Jason forward.

“Hello,” Astra greeted him.

“Hi, Ms. … Dr. … uh,” he stammered, words suddenly failing him.

“Astra is fine.”

“Right. Um, thanks. I just wanted to tell you that I really liked your presentation. It’s really cool to hear someone else be open about being from another planet.”

Astra’s smile brightened, and Jason felt his breathing grow easier. “Are you very interested in environmental science?”

“Uh, I’m hoping to do things on the policy end more than the science part, but Professor Danvers’ class is really good.”

Astra’s gaze flickered over towards Professor Danvers before she turned back to him. “I have no doubt. You should know that the internship is focused on research and crafting policy proposals. If you’re interested, I would be happy to see you apply.”

“Yeah! I mean, yes. I’m planning to. It sounds like it would be an awesome opportunity.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small business card. “Email me if you have any questions about the application. I know things aren’t quite like the guild system we had on my home planet, and I can imagine you may have similar questions.”

He nodded, thanking her and not mentioning that he’d already learned that the hard way a few years back when he was applying for his first job.

As he and Citlali headed towards the exit, he overheard Professor Danvers asking Astra how she thought things went and slowed his steps to try to hear if she said anything about him or other possible applicants.

He strained to hear bits and pieces.

“…enthusiastic group—a credit to you, of course.” Professor Danvers hummed in agreement. “We’ll talk more at home, darling.”

He caught sight of Citlali’s wide eyes and dragged her out of the room before she could say something that would make it obvious they’d been eavesdropping.

But they’d only just made it out the door when she was practically screeching: “You mean we just got to meet her wife?”

He barely had time to shush her before he heard a loud laugh echoing in the classroom behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Twitter and Tumblr @sapphicscholar
> 
> I have a little epilogue that will be up in a couple of days, though I think this also works as a standalone piece


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